I Have Died Everyday Waiting For You
by FanaticismForWords
Summary: Antoinette Edelle Stark was born May 29, 1983, with a full head of dark hair, her father's brown eyes, and a delicate red S on her wrist. Steven Grant Rogers was born July 4, 1918, with a closed fist and flailing legs and a capital A on his wrist, sharp and red. It takes them ninety-five years to come together.


_**I have died every day waiting for you (Darling Don't Be Afraid I Have Loved You For A Thousand Years) **_

Antoinette Edelle Stark was born May 29, 1983, with a full head of dark hair, her father's brown eyes, and a delicate red _S_ on her wrist.

Sixty-five years ago, Steven Grant Rogers was born on the fourth of July with a closed fist and flailing legs and a capital _A_ on his wrist, sharp and red.

1986; Antoinette, affectionately nicknamed Toni by Edwin Jarvis, had run to her mother and tugged on her fingers, asking with impeccable vocabulary for a toddler,

"Why is the letter on my wrist red?"

Maria Stark, whose greatest weakness might have been the undying hope she held safe in her heart and the kindness she breathed through her lungs, held onto her daughter's wrist, thumbing the red letter gently, "Your soulmate, Toni, hasn't been born yet, that's all."

Three-year-old Toni eyed the black ink spanning across her mother's pale wrist, spelling out the words _Howard _in the scribbled writing that was identical to the one in her father's notebook.

Maria Stark's hope did not extend to her daughter, precisely because Howard Stark had diminished any sign of it with belittlements of 'worthless' and 'not enough' and 'do better'. It took two more years for Toni to conclude that her soulmate wasn't yet to be born but dead.

The concept of soulmates was too distant for her to feel any sort of loss over it. She stared confusedly at the red marking on her wrist before forgetting all about it in favour of reading the highly advanced book her father had gotten for her, ignoring her headache and her frustration at the long words to impress her father.

He was too busy with a conference call.

1935; Steve Rogers signed up as a test subject for Project Rebirth, and walked out of a medical capsule a different man. Everything, from his stamina, senses, looks and height had changed.

Everything but the red _A_ stamped onto his wrist, taking very little space in the large expanse of skin and muscle.

Everything had changed but the fact that his soulmate is still dead.

Being Captain America makes him forget about the red on his wrist and the hole in his heart. He becomes a comedic act and allows himself to be prodded and poked by several scientists trying to replicate the serum that apparently died with the only man that believed in him.

He saves Bucky and a little piece of his heart fixes back together again. He finds Bucky and feels less like Captain America and more like Steve Rogers. Bucky's the only person that understands Steve; the only other person Steve knows with a red letter on his wrist, the crimson _S _the first thing the two of them had bonded over.

Peggy Carter doesn't care about the black ink on her wrist. Peggy Carter doesn't want to wait for the universe to assign her a perfect match; Peggy Carter makes her own choices.

For some reason, Peggy Carter chooses Steve. Steve, with a hole in his heart and red on his wrist, throws caution to the wind and allows himself to fall for the woman who bends soldiers with her will and inspires Generals with her tenacity.

He loses Bucky and nothing makes sense anymore. He loses Bucky and the hole in his heart becomes a black hole, sucking the light and the darkness and everything between.

He loses Bucky and he blames his soulmate.

Blames his soulmate for dying and making his life miserable. Blames his soulmate for marking his wrist with red. Blames his soulmate because he has no one left to blame and nothing left to lose.

1987; She builds her first circuit board at the age of four. It's intricate and she had spent hours and hours of careful construction. She shows her father and he smiles at her for the first time.

Four-year-old Toni Stark, despite reading high school level books, and understanding wiring and electricity, cannot differentiate the difference between the warm, proud smile Jarvis gives her and the calculating, greedy one her father gives her.

The cameras show up twenty minutes later and little Antoinette basks in the affection her father is giving her; ruffling her shoulder-length hair, praising her genius, calling her his daughter.

It's only when one of the many reporters inquires about the red mark visible on her wrist that Toni has her first experience with the cruelty of the world, the brutality of the people in it.

Her father, after ushering the people out the house with the charisma he's somehow managed to hold onto, throws the circuit board at the wall and Toni watches with repressed fear and aching sadness as her work crumbles down to its basic pieces.

She holds her tears when her father yells at her because he hates it when people cry and she doesn't want her dad to hate her.

"Out of all the people in the world, _you _have to be the one with a dead soulmate!"

Jarvis gathers her out of the room, holds her when she cries and then sneaks her a cookie before bed.

With the broken pieces of the circuit on the floor beside her bed and her slightly cracked heart, Antoinette pulls back the sleeves of her shirt and stares at the red ink for a long time.

She tries to hate the boy that died and made her unlovable but the part of her that is purely Maria Stark prevents her from doing so.

She closes her eyes and goes to sleep, innocently believing that tomorrow will be better.

1945; He has the Tesseract on the seat beside him and a plane moving too fast for anyone's good.

He knows what he has to do and is surprised when it hurts just a little. Surprised that even though he's lost his mother, lost Bucky, lost his soulmate, he doesn't want to leave the mess that's his life. Surprised that he wants to stay just a little longer, go on a date with Peggy, get drinks with Howard, thank the squad.

He looks at the red ink on his wrist, standing out against all that is white and blue and grey. For the first time, he thinks about his soulmate, what she looked like, how she died, what her name could have been.

_Amy._

_Anna. _

_Amelia _

The red is the last thing he sees as he drifts down into the ocean, sinks until his lungs can no longer provide him with enough energy to keep him alive. He grabs onto his wrist and his last thought is that maybe, maybe, this was fate.

Maybe his soulmate had died because he would too.

1998; She meets Rhodey at MIT. He's the only person who doesn't underestimate her ability because she's years younger and a woman. He's the only one who doesn't care that she's Howard Stark's daughter or that she has a thick band around her wrist that's supposed to display her soulmate's name.

It's only three years later, as they're drinking at a bar and temporarily being relieved of their respective duties as wingman and wingwoman that an extremely drunk Toni shows a semi sober Rhodey the writing on her wrist.

"He's dead?"

She drowns the rest of her drink and slightly slurs, "Yep, son of a bitch just ditched off the earth with no regards for my poor little heart."

Rhodes rolls his eyes at his best friend's theatrics, "Considering that you've somehow managed to sleep with half the male population of the first years and managed to make half of them cry, I don't think poor and little should be used to describe your heart."

She rolls her eyes, "Whatever, my soulmate can go fuck himself."

"Your soulmate is dead."

"Exactly."

All talk about soulmates ceases until the day she receives a phone call and Obie tells her that there was an accident and that her parents are dead. Her world stops spinning until after the funeral and she crashes and burns in the home that she barely lived in, and Obie's there to pick up her broken pieces and stick her back together with the very little tools he has.

She misses the soulmate she's never met for the first time that day. Wishes the world took some pity on her and didn't kill off the one person that would have loved her unconditionally.

Obie stays by her side when she takes over Stark Industries and brings Pepper into her life; organized, whip-smart Pepper who doesn't take any of her shit and forces her out of bed and into meetings unlike any other.

When Toni shows Pepper the red ink on her wrist, the PA simply looks at her with sympathy Toni doesn't want, kisses the top of her head and tells her to take a shower and go to bed because she's drunk.

She admits that Afghanistan was a poorly calculated error on her part. She admits that she should have stayed in the van, but then decides that nothing would have changed anyway.

Except for maybe, the glowing battery stuck into her chest.

She cries when Yinsen dies. Cries when she pulls his sleeve and sees his soulmate's name, full name, written in red cursive letters. She promises him not to waste her life and she kisses his forehead and whispers thank you during his last moments. She holds his hand until the last breath leaves his lips and his heart beats its last beat.

Mark One gives her the thrill, the kind of adrenaline she hadn't received since the first time she heard JARVIS come online and call her Ma'am. She destroys her weapons and saves herself before Rhodey finds her. She stops making weapons and becomes Iron Woman and for the first time, the red on her wrist is inconsequential compared to the mission.

Obie's betrayal cuts through her like nothing ever did. He rips her heart out of her chest and for a moment, just for a moment, she gives up. For a split second of a moment, she's okay with giving up. Then she hears Yinsen and she remembers Pepper and Rhodes and forces her way to her lab. She saves her life, saves the day, and tells everyone she's Iron Woman.

The only good that comes out of her nearly dying is that she gets to create a new element, she sort of makes a friend in Natasha Romanoff and Pepper finally kisses Happy.

She doesn't forget the part about her joining Fury's super-secret boy band, even as a consultant.

The mark on her wrist is nothing but a fleeting thought. She's got weapons to destroy and a company to run and things to make.

2011; He wakes up to an odd room with an inaccurate station broadcasting the wrong game and then he's running out of SHIELD and into the twenty-first century.

He's angry and cold and hates everyone and everything but he's a soldier so he does as he's told and reads the files, gets acquainted with modern technology and attempts to breathe through the panic attacks.

It's only when he's punching through the fourth sandbag that he sees it and stops, causing the bag to swing to his face violently and he knows if it weren't for the serum, he'd be sprouting a purple eye.

He turns his wrist and feels his heart stop pounding as the red is no longer red but black and, in similar writing, there is an _n _beside his capital _A_.

His world stops for a second time.

2011; She signs the last of the documents that would officially make Pepper Co-CEO and retires home, ready to change out of her dress and into a robe to get the sleep that she so desperately needs after two days. She pulls out her earrings and unpins her hair, wiping off the red on her lips and taking off the bracelet on her wrist and freezing.

She turns her wrist and feels her heart stop pounding as the red is no longer red but black and, in similar, eloquent writing, there is a _t _beside the capital _S. _

All traces of sleep are gone as she makes her way into the lab and pours herself a drink, drowning it in one go and preparing to pour herself another glass before remembering her promise to Pepper and pulling up the schematics for the suit.

_Is her soulmate twenty-eight years younger than she is? _

_Is that not illegal?_

_Is the universe shitting her right now?_

2012; He reckons that his soulmate was born sometime after he went down in the ice. He reckons that it's a good thing he never found her then, because there was a twenty-eight-year gap that he isn't comfortable with but he still regrets putting his soulmate through the misery of red ink on their wrist.

He doesn't really have time to think about soulmates and red wrists when they're on the brink of an alien invasion and he's in a room with half of his so-called team; Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner and himself.

Romanoff rubs her wrist worryingly, the wrist that he knows, because it was in one of the many files he was given to read, spells the name Clinton in messy scrawls; the same Clinton that is being mind-controlled by the God of Mischief they have locked in a cage meant for the Hulk.

He looks towards Fury, who waits with his hands behind his back, still and patient, "Are we waiting on someone."

Her voice is loud and boisterous, creating a ruckus before she even enters the room with the God of Thunder that had stepped outside for some air.

"But like, were you born looking like that? Do...do Ass...ass somethings,"

"Asgardians-"

"Right, Asgardians. Do Asgardians have babies? Did you like appear out of thin air or did you pop out of your mother or did someone magic you into existence?"

He rakes her over. It's impossible not to. Toni Stark, despite being a world-class nuisance, is beautiful in a way he's never seen. Her legs are tanned and long and bare except for the bright red shorts and matching high heels. Her lips are painted a red and her hair, dark and wavy, barely brushes her breasts.

He looks at her and is disconcerted when he finds her already staring back, lips pulled up into a smirk and eyebrow raised as to tell him that she's noticed his staring. She unabashedly rakes him over, once, then twice and he feels his skin burn as if it were a physical touch.

Fury doesn't have time for Toni Stark's antics, not today, "Ms. Stark, if I can have your attention today."

She mock salutes and Steve feels a hot surge of anger.

Fury points to everyone at the table introducing them, "You know Natasha and Coulson, I see you've already met Thor, this is agent Hill, that's Bruce Banner and that is Steve Rogers."

She mouths the words as if she's supposed to know them and Fury helps her by supplying, "Captain America."

She gapes and stares at him for a long time.

"Shit, wait, Captain America? Like the comics Captain America?"

"He's very much real." Fury tells her.

He doesn't expect the loud, resonant laugh that belts out of her and she clutches her stomach and points at him, "Holy shit that's crazy. I mean its one thing to know your dad's an asshole but I thought crazy was pushing it. I guess Howard wasn't off his rocker after all."

He's about to tell her to give Howard Stark some respect. About to defend the friend that helped him when no one else would. But Fury tells her to take a seat and she does, carelessly propping one foot on the table as they go through the situation.

She's smart; he'd give her that. He doesn't understand one word coming out of her mouth but the others seem impressed and he marvels at the fact that she's learned this all in one night.

He can feel her eyes on him as they're brainstorming and, with the anger still fuelling him he asks her, spite clearly evident in his tone, "Can I help you?"

She obviously doesn't care about his anger, "Ya. Can you shoot lasers from your eyes or is that just made up?"

"Pay attention Stark. And take your foot off the table."

She looks at him through narrowed eyes before smiling challengingly, "Don't remember you being my daddy Rogers," she puts the second leg up on the table, her gaze daunting, "What? You gonna knock them off?"

"This is serious"

She just rolls her eyes, "Ya, I know. Aliens are real and you can't shoot lasers from your eyes. My whole life was a lie."

Natasha, sensing the tension there, gets up and tugs on the woman's chair, eliciting a whine from the engineer, "Hey, Tasha."

The spy pushes her over to Banner who has no idea what to do with the billionaire who just smirks sweetly up at him, complementing the way he turns into a monster.

Steve just can't wait until this is all over.

She likes to think that wanting to push people's buttons, wanting to poke and prod until she knows their ticks and what makes them run is part of what makes her such a brilliant engineer.

She kids herself into believing that's what she's doing as she makes jabs at Steve Rogers and watches with repressed satisfaction as he becomes agitated by the second, hands clenching into fists and eyes going dark and stormy.

She doesn't want to admit that part of it, part of the insults and sarcasm and striking jokes have nothing to do with her engineer of a self and has much to do with the fact that she's Howard Stark's daughter.

The same Howard Stark who used to drop everything, her graduation and his anniversary, to get on a plane and go to the Arctic in search of Steve Rogers. The same Howard who forgot her birth date and the colour of her eyes but could recite something Steve Rogers had said fifty years ago.

The same Howard Stark who would constantly remind her that she's not enough, that she's never going to be enough because she's never going to be Steve Rogers; the same Steve Rogers who turns out to be some self-righteous, poster boy of a prick and it pisses her off; opens the wound that never really healed after her father inflicted it.

And so she, hurt and confused and just a little broken, picks and prods and pushes his buttons enough for his eyes to flare dangerously and he moves in, menacing and angry, so close that his breath flutters her lashes when he speaks,

"Put on the suit, why don't we go a couple of rounds?"

She has to suppress the shudder that she feels in her spine and is disgusted at the want she feels in her stomach.

He's hot. She's not proud enough to pretend that the man isn't gorgeous as fuck with his blonde hair and structured jaw and the muscles that bulge under the one size too small shirt. If he were anybody but Captain America, she'd be kissing him instead of provoking him into punching her.

Then the bomb goes off and she's putting on the suit and nearly being shredded by the Hellicarrier's engines. Then Phil Coulson dies and his bloody cards are on the table and she's in some room with pipes and bars and she doesn't care because she's just let someone else die.

And then Steve Rogers is there and he's speaking absolute bullshit about wars and soldiers and nothing really resonates apart from that and then she's in his face spitting out with more vehement than she should muster up, "I am not a soldier Rogers. None of us are."

And then she's somehow figured out where Loki is and she's falling out the window, waiting for the cold metal of the suit and it finally comes and aliens have invaded New York.

And then, somehow, she's got a nuke on her back and she's flying through space and for a second, for a split second, she thinks of the letters on her wrist that aren't red anymore and feels sorry for the poor kid who'll grow up with red on his skin.

Then she can't breathe and sees literal stars and she closes her eyes.

He doesn't realize that his wrist is burning until Natasha closes the portal and the aliens are gone and so is Toni.

He doesn't get to check the reason for the burn because Toni's falling and she isn't stopping. He has a moment of panic because he doesn't know how to save her but he doesn't need to because the Hulk does and Steve rips off her faceplate.

The reactor isn't shining, and she isn't breathing and her eyes are closed and for some reason, Steve's heart is in his throat and his lungs burn until the Hulk roars and he sees the amber flecks that burst in her eyes and then Natasha and Clint are helping Toni to the tower where the SHIELD agents take over the remaining parts of the crisis.

The genius barely stays for shawarma, making a flimsy excuse before heading off to her tower, telling them that she'll see them at SHIELD for the debrief.

She walks in with another kind of armour; high heels and sunglasses and painted lips, and seats herself on the chairs, both feet on the ground and mouth going a mile a minute talking to Bruce who has somehow returned to his former self. Fury tells them that Stark has provided them with her tower where they, all the Avengers would stay in order to be a team; a real one.

Toni walks out of SHIELD promptly after that, dragging Banner with her and calling out as parting words, "Feel free to show up any time. Jarvis will let you in and show you your floors."

He's the last to take her up on her offer, arriving at Stark Tower a week later, carrying the one duffle bag he has, filled with a couple of T-Shirts, his uniform, the suit and his compass. He's surprised to see Stark home, and he shuffles awkwardly before clearing his throat when the engineer is engrossed in her tablet, wearing one of her many impeccable suits.

She smirks when she sees him, "Room's on the 40th floor, you can tell Jarvis to buy whatever you need and we'll have it shipped for you by tomorrow."

She's cordial and inexplicably distant and Steve presumes it's for the best; all they ever do is argue with each other anyway. The only reason he's here is because Fury threatened to kick him out if he didn't leave SHIELD.

He nods curtly before making his way back to the elevators, presuming that he could ask Jarvis to take him to his floor when Toni makes a choking sort of sound that forces him to turn around and face her disgusted look.

She grabs his SHIELD given phone out of his hands and holds it with her thumb and index finger as if it were a disease, "What on earth is this? Nope. You are not allowed in my tower with this kind of garbage."

She flings the phone and it hits the wall, crumbling into pieces and Steve doesn't stop to wonder why she somehow manages to get on his nerves unlike any other, "That was expensive."

He remembers barely being able to afford bread and having to steal medicine for his mother because the very little money that he had went to keeping a roof on top their heads and keeping the water coming. It makes him just a little angry, seeing Toni Stark wearing her lavish clothing in the tower she really doesn't need, throwing the phone as if it doesn't mean anything; as if it weren't made from the kind of money Steve would have killed to have as a kid.

Toni rolls her eyes as she follows him into the elevator, "I'll get you a better one. One that won't break easily under all that strength from those."

She pokes his biceps with her finger, the nail cut extremely short and the red paint chipping in various places, and he feels something electric travel through his veins and he wonders if the reason she pulled back as if she was burnt was because she felt it too.

She plays with the bracelet that he's seen on her since they met for the first time, silver and engraved, and his curiosity is piqued, "Your soulmate?" he asks, indicating the bracelet that conveniently covers the part of her wrist where the black letters should be.

They're moving closer to his floor and she rolls her eyes before dropping her hands, "Stands for shithead, that's what this is. The universe fucked me over."

He's forced to walk into his floor and, as he's watching the elevator doors close on Toni Stark, composed and uncaring, he thumbs his own mark.

He thinks he's found the one thing that they have in common.

She avoids them for the most part.

The Avengers live in her tower and she makes sure to avoid the communal area where she knows they all prefer to stay and although she avoids them, she makes sure to keep the fridge restocked with Clint's favourite yogurt and buy twice the amount of Poptarts and purchase more couches and chairs.

Bruce and her still blow stuff up in the lab and Natasha and Clint drag her to fight clubs she honestly shouldn't be seen in and Thor forces her to teach him more about tech to impress Jane so really, the only person she's ignoring is Steve.

It isn't his fault per se, it isn't hers either.

A couple of days after Steve moved in, she had gone for drinks with Rhodey, as they always did before he was called overseas. She didn't get drunk obviously, because she promised Pepper, but she was tipsy enough to walk into her lab and kick off her heels and take off the silver bracelet and stare long and hard at the _S _and the _t _on her wrist.

Was tipsy enough to imagine, just briefly, that the next letter might be an _e _that spelt Steve.

Tipsy enough to imagine that the universe might think she was enough, perfect even, for a man like Captain America.

She looks at him the next morning as she walks out to go to work, standing there conversing with a little boy and signing his t-shirt and she ridicules herself for even hinting that Steve Rogers could be her soulmate.

She had to run off to the lab the next time she saw him because she kept hearing her dad's voice in her head,

_Maybe if Steve were here, I'd be a little happier. Maybe I could love you a little better if you were like Steve Rogers. _

So she spends her days tinkering in the lab. She goes to fight clubs with Clint and Natasha, blows things up with Bruce, explains television to Thor and hides in her own tower from Captain America.

"Ma'am," Jarvis' voice interrupts the wiring she's installing in Clint's arrows and she puts the weapon down gently, encouraging the AI to continue, "Captain Rogers left some food in front of the door. Told me to inform you if you don't notice after ten minutes."

Her curiosity is the only reason why she enters the code for the workshop and walks towards the steaming plate of pot pie, a hasty note scribbled on paper she didn't know she owned.

_Heard you were in the workshop all day. I didn't know if you ate so I brought you some food. Apologies for the messy writing; my hands were full. _

_S.R_

She eats the meal right there; in the foyer between her tower and workshop and returns to Hawkeye's arrows shortly after. She blames Rogers and his stupid pot pie for the wirings in the arrow to burst and give her the kind of burn that would cause complications if she doesn't treat it right away.

"J, tell me we still have ice."

"You ran out Ms. Stark. The consequences of having things catch on fire every other day."

She huffs under her breath and makes her way upstairs, sucking gently on the moderate-sized burn wound and pausing in the kitchen where everyone is seated and staring at her.

She smiles weakly, "Don't let me stop you. Barton's arrows here nearly killed my hand."

The archer perks up at the mention of his arrows, "Did you finish them?"

"I said it nearly killed me, Robin Hood. Some concern for your teammate please."

Natasha raises an eyebrow, "Didn't you set your entire lab on fire once?"

She finds the ice and smiles at Banner who provides her with a plastic bag. She takes it graciously and is prepared to leave when she remembers pot pie and waking up after sending a nuke to space and being surrounded by people who looked like they care.

The same people who still look like they care.

So, in a decision that she hopes Edwin Jarvis would be proud of, she hops onto the counter and ices her wounds, asking Natasha, "Any ideas for guns after Leoglas' arrows are done?"

The archer speaks before Natasha, "Are they done?"

Toni rolls her eyes, "Patience Barton, give me a couple more hours. I'll get them to you by tomorrow."

She is sucked into a conversation about the logics of bringing arrows to a gunfight afterwards. She's in the middle of explaining the logistics of an exploding arrow when she yawns, loud and unrestricted and Jarvis' voice occupies the now quiet kitchen,

"Ms. Stark, I would recommend some sleep as you've been awake for thirty-two hours straight. Preferably in your own bed instead of the workshop cot this time."

She rubs her eyes, seeing stars in them, "Traitor, you call me out in front of everyone because I won't listen to you."

"You haven't listened to me for the past thirteen years Ms. Stark; I've resorted to other measures. Calling Ms. Potts is one of them."

She hops off the counter, yawns loudly again, and waves Steve Rogers away when he tries to help her as she stumbles; she doesn't think she can handle the electric pulses that travel through her when he touches her. She's too tired for a cold shower.

She bids everyone goodnight and if her eyes linger on the Captain, taking note of the small smile that is, for the first time, directed at her, if she feels something stir in her stomach, then it's only because she's tired.

But then she takes off the suit that she hasn't taken off since she went to work and lets her hair out of its bun and washes off the makeup and removes the silver bracelet that Jarvis had made for her, the words _To my favourite Stark, love Jarvis, _engraved in neat cursive letters and sees that the black letters on her arm are no longer a _S _and _t _but there's a fancy _e _right next to it.

"Jarvis, when did the Captain come out of the ice?"

"April 29, 2011"

She looks at her wrist, theorizing, asking though knowing the answer, "And when did my soul mark change?"

"A day later Ma'am."

"Shit."

He has a large sketchbook and several tools delivered to his floor a couple of days after Toni had come up out of her lab and maintained at five-minute conversation with them. The pages have a fibrous texture and the pencils vary in darkness and softness. He doesn't remember telling anyone about his desire to draw except Jarvis when he had asked the AI about art stores nearby.

"Jarvis, did you buy me these?" He's still a little self-conscious about the manner in which he should talk to the AI.

"No, Captain Rogers, I cannot make purchases of my own accord."

"So who bought these?"

"I have been forbidden to say."

He supposes Jarvis' answer was intentionally supposed to reveal the buyer of his gift as there is only one person who authorizes what Jarvis tells them and doesn't.

He's gone through four pages of the sketchbook, first drawing his room and then his mother and Bucky, and finally the breathtaking view from the tower when Jarvis' voice interrupts,

"Captain, Ms. Stark requests your presence in the lab and asks you to bring your shield."

He knows, as he makes his way down to the thirty-fifth floor, that he has been the only one that has yet to be invited to the lab. Natasha and Bruce have been in there several times and Clint had gone twice to test out the modifications to his new arrows. Even Thor had found himself in the room once, appeasing Toni's childish curiosity and blowing things up with his lightning.

The door is unlocked when he walks in and the music is obnoxious and loud but it stops a second after he enters.

He doesn't see Stark anywhere until he looks towards the row of cars and finds her toned legs peeking out from one of them.

"J," she rolls out from under the car, "what did we say about-"

She freezes when she notices him, and gets up, wiping her greasy hands on her brown shorts, creating stains as she walks up to him confidently.

"Capsicle."

"Stark."

She abruptly turns and makes her way towards the large table in the middle of the room and he's unsure of whether he should follow until she starts talking in a stream of jargon he doesn't understand.

"English, Stark."

"Put your shield on the table." She props herself up on the stool and drags the shield towards herself, flipping it over and picking up some kind of machine the Steve doesn't understand the purpose of.

"DUM-E, fetch me the wires."

He doesn't notice the whirring robot until it, with just an arm and a long pole as a body, rolls towards Stark, handing her a bunch of red wires that cause the engineer to narrow her eyes at the bot, "Very funny, will we be laughing when I dismantle you and put you in the incinerator."

He's shocked when the bot lets out a sound that could be passed for distress before rolling towards the other side of the lab and bringing her a set of thinner blue wires and happily chirping when its owner compliments it.

"Captain, this is DUM-E. DUM-E, Captain America."

The bot holds out its arm and Steve shakes it, smiling when the machine whirs happily, before looking at Stark who's engrossed in the wirings she's putting into his shield.

She's got grease stains on her face and hair and she's wearing a tank top that looks like its seen better days and shorts that are stained and burnt. Her hair is thrown up in a dishevelled bun that is minutes away from falling apart but she looks so peaceful; comfortable enough to drown out the entire world as she builds and creates and fixes.

This is who Toni Stark really is.

She's inexplicably beautiful.

She resurfaces minutes later, holding up the shield proudly and hands him a piece of fabric and a glove that he's to wear on his forearm, "It's part of the new suit."

He's long given up trying to keep up with her and so he simply does as he's told, throwing the shield and then pressing the palm of his gloved hand, watching in fascination as the shield returns, attaching itself to the fabric on his forearm and he looks at Stark to see her smiling at him, a glint in her brown eyes and he has to resist the urge to wipe away the oil stain on her cheek.

"Magnets," she whispers theatrically and he has to laugh.

Later, after she's slowly explained the science behind his shield and the magnets, he goes to his room, opens the sketchbook and starts drawing.

An hour later, Toni Stark's smiling face with her glinted eyes and the grease stain on her cheek and her falling apart hair is staring back at him.

_He draws her because he wants to remember the real Toni Stark, stripped free of her layers, raw and genuine as she was in her lab. He draws her because he liked the way she smiled at him, no mask to hide behind, baring and trusting. _

He draws her for the first time, and he wonders if the addition of a _t _and an _o _on the black ink on his wrist is just a coincidence.

He finds himself hoping it's not.

She begins joining group training sessions and coming up for dinner. She begins to help Clint booby trap the hallways and laughs with Thor when they see the video of the Captain punching a wall after the ceiling burst with confetti. She suggests watching movies every week to catch Steve up and to introduce Thor to earth.

Today is one of those nights; Bruce is popping popcorn in the kitchen and Natasha is scanning through the films, eventually selecting The Hobbit and curling around Clint on the sofa, as they wait in silence for Bruce to come back with the several bowls of popcorn thanks to Thor and Steve's metabolism.

"Thor," Natasha calls for the God who's playing with a Rubik's cube, "Why do you have two soul marks?"

Usually, she'd be uncomfortable talking about soul marks. Usually, she'd walk away, deflecting with a joke or turning the conversation around. Today, she's curious. She had also wondered about the extra mark on Thor's wrist, the extra set of letters on his left wrist.

"In Asgard, we have two soulmates. One is the one you fall in love with and one is the one that breaks your heart."

Her question is impulsive; she speaks before she can shut herself up, "What if they're the same person?"

Thor smiles at her sadly, "Some Asgardians have the same name on both wrists. They cover it up with jewellery like you, Banner and the Captain do. Why do you cover it up anyway?"

"It's personal," Steve responds, "For me at least. I don't want to parade my soul mark to the world. I want it to be between me and my soulmate."

Clint croons about Steve being a romantic but she just thumbs the bracelet that hides an _S, t, _and _e _underneath.

She wonders about the chances that there is an _A _and an _n _underneath the antique watch Steve wears. She wonders if there is a chance, that the universe has decided that her father is wrong and deems her good enough to be the soulmate of Steve Rogers.

She wonders if the universe is just playing a cruel joke on her; that one day she'll see Steve's wrist and it'll be _Margaret _in black and she'd know that her father was right.

The movie starts and she wants to hit herself for being so pathetic; the soulmate mark doesn't matter. Whoever's name is written on her wrist, it won't matter.

She's Toni Stark.

She doesn't need a soulmate to be happy.

It's his turn to pick a movie this week. He's told Jarvis to remove the films that are popular enough for the rest of them to have watched them previously. They've told him that they don't mind re-watching certain movies but he wants everyone to experience the same sort of excitement he does every week when they put on a new film.

He's picked out Jurassic Park, a movie about dinosaurs that no one but Bruce has seen and one he's sure Toni would love to critique, as she does all movies that deem themselves futuristic. He loved listening to her rather than the movie when they watched the Hunger Games and she had picked apart all the ways in which the arena wouldn't have succeeded as it did in the movie.

They're all seated in their self-designated places and he notices a missing member.

"Where's Toni?"

There's the now-familiar clicking of heels on the tiles and Clint's accompanying whistle and he, along with everyone else, turns around.

The last time he was stunned beyond words was when Peggy Carter had walked into a bar wearing a red dress, talking about dance partners and waiting for perfect people.

This time, Toni Stark walks down the steps, her flowing green gown circling her as she studs in her silver earrings. Her lip is painted red and her hair is curled and flows gracefully down her back and his blood rushes south when he catches sight of the two slits in her dress that travels all the way up to her thighs.

_She's far too beautiful for words to describe but he finds himself preferring the Toni with a messy bun and grease-stained shirt and dirt on her forehead. _

James Rhodes walks into the tower not a second later and offers her his arm and Steve knows that the feeling in the pits of his stomach would have been jealousy if he hadn't seen _Virginia _on the Colonel's wrist the last time they spoke and Rhodes had adjusted his wrist band.

Toni and her best friend walk out the tower and the rest of them watch the movie with dinosaurs and scientists, but Steve finds himself missing the voice that would, around this time in the movie, pick out faults and errors and whisper to him how she would do things better. He finds himself thinking about red lips and green gowns and grease-stained hair and burnt shorts.

He draws Toni Stark for the second time that night.

It's three in the morning when she comes back from the gala. Her cheeks hurt from smiling at people she didn't want to smile at and her brain aches from speaking to people who were only trying to undermine her. She's got her heels in her hands and she wants to strip herself of this dress but then she sees Steve Rogers' at the balcony.

"Cap?"

He spins around, rather clumsily and she forgets about the ache in the soles of her feet and the pounding in her head as she makes her way closer to him.

"Hey," He rubs the back of his neck, presumably at the embarrassment of getting caught and she wonders how often the man comes down at odd times of the day and how she hadn't noticed, "Your back."

"Captain," her tone is theatrically shocked, "Were you waiting up on me?"

It entices a small laugh from him and she rests her forearms on the balcony, twitching for a drink in her hands, "Can't sleep?"

Steve shakes his head, "Nightmares."

She still wakes up choking on water, wakes up with blood on her chest, wakes up with Yinsen's last words on her breath and Pepper's dead body on her mind. At night, she's still trapped in the cave, still hooked onto a battery, still dying from palladium, still dying at the hands of her father.

She thinks that Steve Rogers deserves better than to wake up in cold sweat and have sleep taken away from him. She thinks he deserves to rest peacefully and be immune to nightmares but she doesn't get to call the shots.

"How about you take your tablet and join me downstairs? I'd love the company and you can catch up on I Love Lucy instead of staring forlornly at the sky. I mean, come on Rogers, there are too many city lights for you to see stars. What are you even looking at?"

He nods and smiles at her with an expression so close to fondness, she has to push down the hope that threatens to seep into her chest.

She grabs the heels that she dropped on the ground and calls out to Steve as she half-jogs to the elevators, "Great, the doors are unlocked for you, make yourself at home, I'll just change out of this and meet you there."

She gets changed in record time, pulling on a pair of overalls and tying her hair into a ponytail before making her way down into her workshop where Steve is stretched across the couch, earbuds in and concentration completely on the tablet he uncomfortably holds.

She doesn't realize that she's smiling and staring until YOU knocks her on the legs and she clears her throat and instructs the bot to hold the Captain's StarkPad.

He smiles at her in thanks and she pretends the butterflies creating havoc in her stomach doesn't exist.

She doesn't realize that the far right corner of her workshop now belongs to Steve until weeks later.

The mission was relatively simple; someone had managed to steal SHIELD's most classified weapons and the Avengers were called in to neutralize the threat and retrieve the weapons.

The mission was easy; it went off without a glitch.

The reporters started to swarm once the crisis was resolved and because of the very little damage, they managed to effectively block the pathway between them and the Helicarrier.

Steve follows Toni whose expertise is dealing with the press and as expected, she charms them with a painted smile and her theatrics that only amuse Steve instead of pissing him off, as it would have months ago.

The questions are inconsiderate and rude but Steve supposes Toni's used to it, he's seen worse things written about her in articles that the genius brushes away without a mere thought and so Steve just follows her lead like the rest of them and stares straight ahead, drowning out the many questions.

Until one, masochistically suicidal in his opinion, reporter, shoves through the crowd and shoves a microphone in Toni's face, now devoid of a faceplate.

"Ms. Stark, what do you think your father would have thought about you being a superhero?"

He can feel her tense up and shut down. The faceplate goes down and she's addressing the crowd as she lifts from the ground,

"Those are great questions I will never bother to remember. Now, have a great day."

Then she's flying off and by the time the rest of them reach the tower, she's locked herself up in her lab and Steve doesn't need for Jarvis to tell him to know that visitors aren't welcome.

He's awoken at two in the morning, not by images of Bucky falling off a train or of Toni never coming back from the wormhole (a recent addition to his nightmares) but because of Jarvis, "Captain, Ms. Stark called for you down in the workshop."

He rubs the remnants of sleep out of his eye, "Is she okay?"

"Okay might be a subjective term."

The answer to Jarvis' cryptic statement is clarified when he sees Toni Stark spinning in her chair, two empty bottles of whisky on the workshop floor. The bots are surrounding her, beeping in worry and Steve makes his way towards her slowly.

"Toni,"

She looks at him and she lights up, "Steeeveeeee."

She tries to go to him but has apparently forgotten that she's in a chair and has consumed a copious amount of alcohol and she stumbles and nearly falls but he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her upright.

She looks at him from beneath her lashes and he tries not to notice her flushes cheeks or her lips that's right there because _she's drunk for god's sake, now's not the time to ogle._

He carefully guides her to the couch that he occupies more than she does and hears her mumble as he's laying her down, "M, br'ke pr'mise to Pep."

She'd told him, one night as he was sketching DUM-E and she was making updates on her suit that she had promised her PA and one of her best friends that she'd stop the excessive drinking. She'd bared a little part of her soul to him that day and Steve had found it addicting.

He grabs the blanket draped over the sofa and unfolds it, "yeah? Why did you?"

She shrugs noncommittally and he drapes the blanket over her, looking down at DUM-E who rolls towards its owner before looking back at Toni's tear-filled eyes.

Without thinking, he cups her face and rubs the wetness off her cheeks, "Toni," his tone is sad and imploring and he doesn't even know what he's asking for.

Toni's too drunk to care.

"D'you think 'm good 'nough for my soulmate?"

He knows, from the very little Fury and Natasha has told him, that Howard Stark may have been a brilliant inventor and a phenomenal futurist, but he wasn't a good father. He's tried to correlate the man he knew during the war and the man that Toni knew and had failed spectacularly.

"I think your soulmate is so lucky to have you. Anyone would be lucky to have you." His mind automatically goes to the black letters on his wrist, letters spelling out _Anto. _

She looks at him hopefully and she looks so young, and so lost it tugs at his heart painfully, "Yeah?"

He brushes back the strands of hair that obscure her face, falling for her a little more when she burrows herself into his hand, "Yeah."

She's out like a light shortly after and he's sitting in his room, flipping through the sketchbook he was given, noting with a newfound realization that somewhere along the line his drawings stopped varying and started becoming all Toni.

He's sketched the genuinity of her small smiles and the golden flakes in her eyes. He's sketched her yelling at DUM-E and chasing YOU. He's drawn her in her business suits, in her formal dresses; he's drawn several pictures of her in her workshop tinkering; hair pulled back, shoulders hunched in concentration, mask off and eyes bright.

The pencil is on paper before he can consciously rethink his action, the strokes becoming an entity of their own. It's well into the morning when he's done but he deems it worth the effort because he's afraid that he'd forget the way Toni looked in her sleep.

Her lashes nearly brush her cheekbone, curling up at the ends and her lips constrict into a small pout. Her arms and legs are flailed in different directions and her hair is tousled and wild, much like the woman herself. He's managed to capture Toni's state of absolute peace as she sleeps, the glow of the reactor giving her a more ethereal look. He realizes that there's a constant weight hanging over her shoulders that ceases to exist when she's deep in her subconscious.

_He falls for her the way he paints, slowly, steadily but with everything he has. _

_He falls in love between her dragging him around New York as his self appointed tour guide to the twenty-first century and buying the art store around the corner so that he can walk in and get supplies whenever. He falls in love with the way she treats her bots as if they were her kids, the way her hands create phenomena that Howard couldn't even hold a candle to. _

_He falls in love with the small, but genuine smile she gives him when he walks into the room. Falls for the kindness buried deep beneath layers of snark and sass that he also falls in love with. He falls in love with the way her eyes light up when she gets an idea and the way she stubbornly makes burnt egg after egg, determined to get it right._

_He wonders why it took thirty-seven drawings for him to realize that he's utterly and absolutely in love with Antoinette Stark_.

"I think Steve Rogers is my soulmate."

Rhodey chokes on his drink and Pepper, for the first time since she met her, after aliens and Iron Woman and palladium poisoning, looks shocked.

The redhead recovers relatively quickly, quicker than Rhodey and stammers slightly before composing herself, "Are you sure?"

Rhodey wipes his mouth with a napkin, "I thought your soulmate died. Your letters were red."

She doesn't pull up her sleeve and move the bracelet to the side, there are too many people in the cafe they favour having brunch at and she doesn't want to risk anyone snapping a photo of Toni Stark's soulmark, allegedly red.

So she chews on her waffle, and keeps her hands tucked firmly under her leg, "Turned black about a year ago, got an extra letter as well, a t beside the S. The good Captain came out of the ice twenty-four hours before that."

Rhodey looks at her with barely suppressed glee, "Shit. You got more letters?"

"Yep, an _e _and a _v _now, doesn't take a genius to add two and two up."

Pepper, finally in control of the situation, narrows her eyes at her. Only this time, it's not with the suppressed anger or annoyance that she's usually the victim of when she fails to attend meetings or spends her money on girl scouts, this time it's a knowing look, laced with fondness and a tinge of happy, "But that's not why your a hundred percent sure it's Steve, is it?"

She supposes that if she were to tell anyone first; if anyone were to figure it out, she'd prefer it to be Pepper and Rhodey, the two people that mean the world to her.

Rhodey looks at the two girls for a moment and it takes him a long while, long enough for Toni and Pepper to move onto talking about shoes and lipstick, to figure out that the reason why Toni is so sure that her soulmate is Steve Rogers is because she's fallen for him.

_She falls for him head first, closing her eyes and jumping off the cliff as she does when encountering a new idea or tinkering with a piece of metal._

_She falls in love in between him drawing in her workshop and dragging her out of the Tower to eat when she hasn't in hours. She falls in love with the way he describes each piece in the art museum the way she describes her inventions. Falls in love with the way he looks at her like he looks at art._

_Falls in love with the way he listens to every tangent, the way he somehow knows when she needs her space, the way he doesn't look at her like she's Howard Stark's daughter or Iron Woman or a billionaire genius but just Toni._

_She falls in love with Steve Rogers and it's why she isn't surprised, not even in the slightest, when the letters on her wrist spell out 'Steven'_

"Oh shit," Toni and Pepper look at him but he only has eyes towards his lifelong friend, his little sister, who looks at him amusedly when she realizes he's finally got it, "Oh shit, that's...that's good Tones. He's good, he'd be good for you."

Toni shrugs, schooling her expression before telling her friends, "He doesn't know."

Rhodey and Pepper exchange concerned glances before Pepper asks, "He doesn't know?"

Toni shakes her head, "Nope, and we're keeping it that way."

"Why?"

She finishes off the remnants of her brunch before saying the words that she practiced in front of the mirror, repeating it until it stopped hurting, "He's still not recovered from his time spent as a Capsicle, I'm not a hundred percent sure my name's on his wrist, he's just started to like me and I've decided that I don't need my soulmate to survive. I mean, I did pretty well all these years without one right?"

Pepper and Rhodey just nod uncertainly, and she's expected the concerned looks from them, expected the slight sympathy and the not so slight protectiveness.

It doesn't stop it from hurting though.

She's long learned that weakness is a curse she cannot afford to have.

The notion has only considerably increased since she joined a team with supersoldiers and assassins and gods and men who spit out bullets. They are their own brand of strength, they exude the kind of lethal that comes with no weakness. They can carry trucks and get hit by cars and can anticipate an oncoming strike.

And Toni? Well, she's just a human in a titanium suit that has more wounds on the inside than the out who's barely surviving one day after the next. Weakness is a curse that doesn't seem to want to leave her alone.

But Starks are made of Iron, and so she covers her wounds with an AI that coaches her through breathing sessions after an attack. She hides her weaknesses with a watch that can turn into a gauntlet and the best security system humanity has to offer and JARVIS constantly scanning the area for potential threats.

They're at a press conference, all six of them. She's barely listening to the speaker as he drones about his concerns over what they're plotting alone in her tower and his suggestion that she open the place to the public so that they can check up on them if the need arises. The whole thing is a bogus anyway; a half ditch effort at trying to increase public support by Fury.

Steve nudges her, just a little as he gets up from his seat and she turns off the schematics projecting on her tinted glasses and shoots him what she hopes is a thankful smile instead of the phony grin that she had plastered on for the duration of the interview. She ignores the swooping in her belly when he smiles back and offers her his hand, the way he does when they're in the privacy of her workshop and he's telling her to come upstairs with him to have a snack, the way he never does in public.

But she takes it, because she's not that much of a bitch to leave him hanging when there are clearly so many scrutinizing glares, and ignores the tug in her sternum and the warmth of Steve's hand as it wraps around hers. She ignores the fact that she's so badly in love with him and that the tug in her sternum and the acute awareness of the warmth wrapped around her hand is another side effect.

She pulls away and, as naturally as she can, increases her pace just slightly, so that she's walking off the stage ahead of him, staring determinedly at Natasha's curled locks.

"Ma'am," JARVIS' voice is riddled with urgency and it makes her stop in her tracks and her blood run just a little cold, "There's a bullet headed for Captain Rogers' way."

It's instinctive. It shouldn't be, but it is; the way she immediately turns around and shouts, "Cap!" and pushes him away from the bullet that she cannot see, but knows is coming.

She doesn't know where it pierces, only that her entire body feels as if it burst into flames and she chokes on a sob as white dances through her vision and she can feel just how heavy the arc reactor is.

The screams and shouts and absolute chaos is simply white noise, and she can feel herself starting to drift away slowly, welcoming pain; her dear old friend.

Perhaps she should have accounted better for the weakness that was her heart. Perhaps love is this burning feeling that settles into her every vein and induces screams she cannot scream, breaths she cannot breathe.

"Toni, Toni,"

Steve's hands are as terrified as his words, she blinks her eyes open, trying to focus her feeling into the way he cups her jaws, running his other hand through her hair in a motion so erratic, she'd like to humour herself and pretend it's desperation she's feeling.

"Toni, stay with me. Stay with me, sweetheart."

His words are slurred and too far away, she's floating away too fast and she tries, she tries so hard to keep her eyes trained on his blue ones, blue like the ocean, like the water she used to wake up to in Malibu, the blue that she wants to wake up to every morning for the rest of her life.

"Goddamn it, Tony! I said stay with me. That's an order. Keep your eyes open, don't you fucking dare close them."

She wants to laugh, tease him about his poor use of language, haul him close and kiss the fear out of his eyes. She's never seen fear in his eyes. She doesn't really like it.

She keeps her eyes trained on him even as she feels the familiar feeling of the darkness grabbing in her a chokehold grip. Perhaps she should have accounted better for the weakness that was her heart. Perhaps love is this burning feeling that settles into her every vein and induces screams she cannot scream, breaths she cannot breathe.

But then she remembers Steve; beautiful, kind, _alive _Steve and decides that it's worth it.

_He can't see her eyes _

He tries to remember the golden flecks that burst like fireworks. The sparkle he can swear shines bright when she's talking about her inventions. The ring of amber that glows more prominently when she wears one of the shirts with the hole cut in the middle to showcase the arc reactor that somehow means so much to him beyond words can explain.

The arc reactor that's flickering dangerously as the nurses and doctors rush in an out of the room where Toni Stark lays motionless and still as if the universe thinks that it can stop the girl with motion in her veins and movement in her lungs.

"Steve," Natasha's voice is quiet and calm but he doesn't open his eyes, opting to feel the burning pain on his wrist that's not in any way unfamiliar.

Toni Stark is his soulmate and she's dying and there isn't a goddamn thing he can do about it.

"Steve," Natasha calls his name again and he forces himself to snap his eyes open, not expecting murder to stare back.

"They found the guy. He's in the interrogation room."

The Russian's lethal is out like a coat and he lets his anger, the anger that he's taken great precautions to reel in, do the same. He follows her through corridors and around corners, despite an aching, screaming part of him yelling to turn around and go back to Toni.

Bruce is waiting outside the interrogation room in the SHIELD facility, his hands are nearly white at the tight grip he has on the chair and Steve's reminded of another person who's had the pleasure of getting sucked into Toni Stark's orbit.

"He's created a formula that lowered his body temperature considerably. Toni's sensors or Jarvis couldn't detect his heat signature until he had his hand on the trigger." The Doctor tells him with poorly restrained anger.

He doesn't get to hear Natasha tell Bruce to walk it off, to calm down, to check on Toni. He's ripping apart the hinges on the door and when he sees the man, calmly sitting on a chair in the room while Toni is motionless and still, he sees red.

He's got his hands wrapped around the sniper's neck. His hand is stained with his soulmate's blood, his soulmate that's breathing through a tube and he squeezes harder, watching the man turn purple and his eyes roll back slightly.

"Steve. Steve. Captain!" Natasha harshly yells into his ear and he drops the scum carelessly, allowing himself to be ushered out of the room, only faintly hearing Barton tell the man who is the reason Toni is lying on a hospital bed, motionless and still, "So, do you want to confess or shall I call back the good Captain again?"

"Steve, get your shit together," Natasha nearly growls but there's something so tender in her eyes as she holds his hands – the hands that are stained with Toni's blood – and he heaves out a sob.

Natasha holds him as he sinks to the floor and lets go of the tears he didn't realize he was repressing, "I love her, Nat."

"I know, Steve. We all do. You can tell her when she wakes up."

She wakes up a couple of times after her surgery. The first time, it's too dark and she's pumped up on too much morphine to stay awake for longer than twenty seconds. The second time, Bruce is there, smiling at her with so much happiness telling her that the pain meds will go away soon, as she languidly drifts away.

The third time, she's awake and the pain meds are reduced to the bare minimum and Steve Rogers is yelling at her about recklessness and how she nearly died and her stupidity and _how could you do that. _

_She nearly died is what really sticks. She nearly died but she didn't and she's awake and with this beautiful force of a man and she loves him so fucking much it hurts. _

"You have to assess the situation, for god's sake Toni. That was reckless and so, so stupid and did you even think about what would have happened if the bullet hit you a little –"

"I think you might be my soulmate."

The room is thrust into a silence she cannot discern and she wants the ground to open up and swallow her whole when Steve Rogers just looks at her unblinking and then at her wrist, obscured by the hospital band and then back at her and she wonders if she could blame the morphine.

His mouth moves but makes no sound and this would have been the part where she laughs, except she cannot because she just told him that he was her soulmate and he's not saying anything back and _godthiswasabadidea. _

But then he looks at her as if he's seeing the sun for the first time, and she watches the fear disappear and replace itself with something she cannot name, "I would hope you think so. Because you're definitely mine."

And maybe Pepper and Rhodey was the universe's way of apologizing for giving her such a shitty life and maybe she'll love them more than she'll love anyone but she curses their existence for a split second because they burst into the room with reckless abandon and all but throw themselves at her, fretting over the hallow in her cheeks and the stitch on her skin and the fear that they felt.

But then she sees the intertwining of their hands and their bracelet that's no longer there – each other's name written delicately around their wrists – and she forgets about Steve Rogers for a moment and breaks out into a wide grin, "You got your shits together!"

They roll their eyes but help her get discharged from the hospital, Pepper using her CEO voice and Rhodey reassuring that the tower is equipped with a certified Doctor and several others, sans Thor, with some degree of knowledge of medical care.

It feels like she's in a flurry of constant movement after that, despite being advised to do just the opposite and her two best friends watching her like a hawk to ensure that she abides by the Doctor's instructions. She gets a heavenly soup made by Natasha, and the most gentle hug Thor is capable of, and Clint lets her win Mario Cart and Bruce promises to blow things up in the lab with her after she gets better.

But then it's dark and she's lying in bed with an ache on her right and a larger ache behind her rib cage and she can barely see the letters on her wrist but can feel the words on the tip of her tongue and she nearly died and she may die tomorrow or the day after because the world she lives in is merciless and cold.

She doesn't really remember how she gets there, doesn't remember if Jarvis issued a warning advising her against it or if he simply resigned into making sure she doesn't trip and fall in the darkness but she's knocking on Steve Rogers' bedroom door with words on the tip of her tongue and letters on her wrist.

He opens the door and she's momentarily distracted by the lack of shirt and the onslaught of muscle and skin and warmth and tousled hair before she meets blue eyes that she remembers were the last thing she saw before she let the pain take her and she focuses.

"Toni what—"

"I know you're my soulmate because I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with you but also because your name is on my wrist and I just thought you should know before I wake up without this uncharacteristic courage tomorrow morning."

She feels the corner of her lips tip up when she's clearly caught him off guard but then, after rubbing the name – _her name –_ on his wrist, he's in her space with his hands on her hips and lips a breath away from her own.

She closes the distance because she knows he won't, and it's slow and sweet but for some reason it entices a moan out of her and he makes a low guttural sound from deep in his throat and she feels the heat all the way down when he carries her up off the ground, his lips still wrapped around hers.

Her back is against the wall, and she's trying to touch as much skin as she can reach, feeling the hard planes of his abdomen and tugging on his head as they clash teeth and tongue and her wrist throbs in a pleasant kind of ache she wants to feel for the rest of her life.

And only she, while in the middle of a very hot makeout session with her soulmate who just happens to be Captain America, could let out an incredibly unflattering yawn that causes Steve to chuckle against her mouth and put her down.

She chases the taste of his lips, eyes still closed and she feels her heart stop when they brush her forehead, tender and sweet and something no one but Ana Jarvis and Pepper Potts has ever done.

"Bed," he tells her sternly and she raises an eyebrow, relishing in the flush that creeps up his neck, "to sleep."

They fall into bed, his arms wrapped around her waist, her head pillowed into his chest as one of his fingers gently brush across her newly acquired stitches.

"I was so scared." He whispers into the darkness, "thought I was going to lose you."

"I'm fine." She says, snuggling closer but he continues on as if she had said nothing.

"Thought I was going to lose you without telling you that I loved you."

She knows he can feel her smile on his skin and she tips her head and waits until his lips descend down on her, as she finds his wrist and circles it with her fingers, whispering I love yous through the kiss.

And she closes her eyes and sleeps with no nightmares, with no red on her wrist and hole in her heart. She closes her eyes and sleeps with the promise of tomorrow, the promise of love, the promise of the kind of happy she's destined to feel with Steve Rogers.

Antoinette Edelle Stark was born May 29, 1983, with a full head of dark hair, her father's brown eyes, and a delicate red _S_ on her wrist.

Steven Grant Rogers was born July 4, 1918, with a closed fist and flailing legs and a capital _A_ on his wrist, sharp and red.

It takes them ninety-five years to come together.

They tell their kids that it's going to take much longer for the universe to tear them apart.


End file.
